An explosion of announcements yesterday made it sound like a done deal that the cast from the last three Star Trek films—Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, and the rest of the gang—had all signed on for another tour of space duty. The Enterprise will definitely fly on screen again, with Matt Shakman directing and J.J. Abrams producing. But as to who will be on board… that’s less certain.
“EW has learned that the studio has yet to enter negotiations with that original cast at this juncture,” Entertainment Weekly noted.
The last movie in the “Kelvin timeline” (so-called to differentiate between this timeline and the timeline of the TV series) was 2016’s Star Trek Beyond, which was directed by Fast & Furious franchise maestro Justin Lin, to the dismay of some fans. (Sorry, but that “Sabotage” scene was extremely good fun.) It wasn’t a flop, but it didn’t rise to the level of 2009’s Star Trek or Star Trek Into Darkness.
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In 2018, Paramount tried to pull together a film that would’ve seen Pine’s Kirk reunite with his father, played by Chris Hemsworth. Variety explained, “That film never materialized, however, after Paramount reportedly couldn’t close a deal with Pine and Hemsworth.”
And there have been more false starts: Remember the R-rated, Quentin Tarantino-directed Star Trek that never was? Noah Hawley (Legion) was also developing a Trek film that would have introduced all-new characters. Executive changeover at Paramount left that project—and at least one more, a script written by Kalinda Vazquez—in Hollywood limbo.
But, according to Variety, Paramount did market research to figure out that there “was still lasting audience enthusiasm for Pine, Quinto and the rest of the cast in their established roles.” (They needed market research for this?) And Abrams is a known quantity and a regularly (and hugely) successful producer through his company Bad Robot, while Shakman definitely proved himself on a huge stage with WandaVision. One of WandaVision‘s writers, Cameron Squires, is a screenwriter on the new film, along with Josh Friedman (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles); their screenplay is based on a previous draft by Geneva Robertson-Dworet (Captain Marvel) and Lindsey Beer (whose name has also been attached to the long-gestating Kingkiller Chronicle adaptation).
If Paramount can get the original cast back, a new movie seems like a safe bet—but isn’t that a big “if”? Pine has the Wonder Woman films. Saldana has the still-impending Avatar sequels. Karl Urban is one of The Boys. Simon Pegg is in the Missions: Impossible. John Cho’s Cowboy Bebop was cancelled after a single season, but let’s be honest: He deserves a bigger part than Star Trek has ever given him.
Reportedly, this new film will begin production in late 2022. It’ll be interesting to see who gets back into their Starfleet uniform.
